Xweetok: Legacy
by Derp San
Summary: Sam and Quorra have returned to live in the Grid, and adopt a blue Xweetok as a pet. However, new enemies lurk in the shadows of the Outlands, and this Xweetok may just turn out to be the Grid's next savior.
1. Arrival

Xweetok : Legacy (Tron x Neopets)

1 /\ Digitized

The young Xweetok opened her eyes. She gazed blearily around her. Everything was white. Slowly, the world came into focus as she blinked repeatedly.

Two people were standing in front of her. They fixed her with soft stares and made cooing noises as she awoke. The Xweetok's eyes fully focused and she took in the sight of two humans - Owners, she presumed - one male, one female, crouching in front of her. Behind them, the room was just white, crossed here and there by squares, and dotted with white furniture, and books. Behind the Xweetok, a long glass pane stretched from one end of the room to another, offering a birds-eye view of the vast, rough terrain of the off-Grid Outlands outside and the warm blue glow of the Grid.

The newly-created Neopet squeaked. She didn't understand what was going on. It was there in her head, programmed before her birth somehow - the unspoken rule that once a Neopet had been created it would be given to its owner, who would be waiting in the Welcome Center's lobby. This didn't look like Neopia Central's Welcome Headquarters. This didn't even look like Neopia. This strange land matched none of the descriptions of the different countries of Neopia, not even one. It reminded her a bit of the Virtupets Space Station, all lights and metal, but this place was way different.

"I think she's confused," said the female to the male. The girl pushed a bowl of milk towards the Xweetok, who squinted at it as if she thought it was full of poison. She lapped up the milk anyway.

"She would be," replied the male. "She's been programmed to recognize Neopia, not the Grid." He then scratched the Xweetok under her chin. She purred.

"Can you talk?" he asked. The Xweetok understood him perfectly, and she opened her mouth to give him a yes, but only a meow came out. She reeled back in horror. The female Owner giggled, she clearly thought it was adorable. The Xweetok was surprised. Neopets should be able to communicate properly and freely in their Owner's language. Why was she unable to speak properly?

The male Owner got up and paced the room. It was a brightly lit room, with tiles of light serving as the floor. The Xweetok noticed that her Owners' black suits were illuminated too, with strips of blue-white light running down them and meeting the occasional circle. There was also a donut-shaped disc strapped to their backs that glowed as well. The Xweetok wondered what it tasted like. Did it even taste like a donut?

"There might have been a glitch in her speech program when we brought her here, or maybe it just doesn't work in other domains. I could try and rewrite her speech code; see how that works. But first, she needs a disc." The Xweetok flinched at the male's words. Whatever rewriting code was, it sounded like she was going to lose a part of herself. And this disc thing... was it the giant glowing donut attached to their backs? Maybe life here wasn't going to be that bad after all.

The female noticed. "There now, don't be scared. I've had my code edited once as well, by my..." Here there was a sad pause, as if she was remembering something that had caused her grief in her past. "By my mentor," she finished. "He was a good man."

The Xweetok sensed her sadness and knew that this mentor person had indeed been a good man, and that he was gone - dead, or as they called it in this 'Grid', derezzed by re-integration.

The male was pretending not to hear her, but the Xweetok saw him tense as well. He had probably been very, very close to this 'mentor', as well, surmised the Xweetok.

The female leaned closer to the Xweetok, her short black bob nearly touchiing her snout. She introduced herself as Quorra, and stated that she was an 'isomorphic algorithm', or ISO, whatever that meant. The Xweetok cocked her head to one side, not understanding.

"That's Sam Flynn," said Quorra, pointing at the male who was doing something on a touch-screen computer. "He is the Son of Flynn, my mentor and creator. We adopted you after returning from a visit to Earth, so that he could keep tabs on this world, and make sure that Clu does not reform or his army does not rise against us."

Who was Clu? Who was Flynn? What was an ISO? Where was this Grid? Many question floated around in the Xweetok's head.

"I've put some of my knowledge about us into her disc so that she'll receive it when she integrates with it," announced Sam Flynn, the Son of Flynn suddenly. He then returned to the Xweetok's makeshift bed and strapped on two glove-like strips of armor just like his and Quorra's suit. They felt like paw-guards to the Xweetok, not uncomfortable but stiff, even though they had gaps in them to allow joint movement.

After the paw-guard gloves came the chest piece. It covered the top half of the Xweetok's torso and reached to the back as well, providing a semicircular holder that was the perfect size of the Xweetok's disc. The disc slipped into the holder perfectly.

The Xweetok's blue eyes dilated and the whites disappeared for just a fleeting second, before she returned to her normal self and licked her paw. However, with the disc came a new understanding of what and where this Grid was, and its history of feuds. With this knowledge, a feeling of deeper respect for her new owners arose. How lucky she was, to have an ISO and the Son of Flynn as her family. Too bad about the identity disc though. It would probably have made a brilliant donut.

Sam approached her. "I think I'll call you Heather," he said, lifting the small catlike creature up as one would lift one's puppy or kitten. The newly named Heather purred.

"Heather Flynn," Quorra mused. "What a wonderful name."

Sam turned red. "Where does my last name fit into all this?" he exclaimed.

"She's part of the family," explained Quorra calmly but firmly.

Sam sighed and set the Xweetok down gently onto a white tile. Heather poked at it, wondering if it would burst and release a rainbow or something similar to a rainbow. Perhaps a leprechaun will appear, Heather thought.

"Okay, now I'm going to try and fix your speech program," Sam told Heather. "Sit tight. You might have to go offline for a moment."

Heather's eyes widened in fear. Go offline? That sounded as scary as rewriting code. She scrambled away from Sam, but he caught her. Quorra stroked her back, trying to calm her.

Then the world faded as Heather Flynn, Household Pet of Flynn, went offline.


	2. Pollux

Xweetok : Legacy

2 /\ Pollux

Heather woke up lying on a circular bed in the middle of a room that looked like it had been hewn out of black rock. Wait a minute - she was lying down?

She stood up and swung herself off the bed. A full-length mirror faced her. She gasped. She was no longer a Xweetok. The only features that actually showed she had once been an animal were the small, pointed and cat-like ears on her head and her bushy blue tail.

The person that stared back at her from the mirror was none other than herself, but in a humanoid form that some famous Neopets had taken. Lilian Fairweather, Xandra... she looked like them now.

"Whoa," she breathed. Then realization dawned on her. "I can speak!" she cried.

She stared at a tall, lanky girl with olive brown skin and blue hair the same color as her mane had been. Her chestpiece and paw guards had been replaced with an actual suit like the ones that Sam Flynn and Quorra wore. Heather gasped. She looked so much unlike her Xweetok form.

Heather left the room. The corridor outside was deserted, and the lights in the floor were off. The only illumination in the whole room came from the glint of the Grid's blue light reflecting off the crystal chandeliers on the ceiling. It was night outside, but then again Heather presumed that it was always night here. Sam and Quorra were probably asleep.

Heather crept around the loft, trying to make as little sound as possible and avoid making clacking sounds with her boots. Sam Flynn probably wouldn't like it if he found his household pet turned human snooping around his father's home.

She noticed two small gleaming shapes on the mantelpiece and went over to check them out. One was gold and one silver. They caught her eye and her inner Xweetok wanted to snatch them and bat them around with her paws. The humanoid Heather composed herself and took the gold one in her gloved hands. It seemed to have been made of many octagonal shapes combined together.

"Up late, aren't you?"

Heather swivelled around. Sam was leaning against the window. "I knew you'd be a curious one from the moment I saw you."

"S-Sorry!" Heather stuttered. "I'll just put it back..." She replaced the gold ornament on the shelf. There was a loud clank where there only should have been a small thud. Someone else was here.

Sam was suddenly alert. He ran into the room next to his and came out with a sleepy Quorra. Heather pulled out her disc and its razor blade activated. Her head was enveloped by black material which solidified into a helmet with a transparent visor.

"They can't get in, can they?" Quorra asked. "The platform's up here."

As if answering her question, the platform began to move downward. "They've hacked into our security system," Sam breathed.

The platform remained downstairs for a few more seconds, then it began to rise slowly. There was a figure in a red-lined suit standing there, with a completely black helmet over its face. Heather stood frozen, unable to move her arm and throw her disc.

"Rinzler?" Sam said in disbelief.

"No," came the guttural voice from behind the helmet. "I am Pollux. And I come to make what is wrong right."

Pollux drew his disc. Sam did likewise, and Heather threw hers at Pollux.

It did not hit him. Pollux executed a perfect backflip and launched his disc at her. Heather ducked and the disc bounced off the glass - to her surprise - and returned to Pollux's hand. Sam ran and threw his disc towards the exact spot where Pollux would have landed. It missed him by a centimetre. Quorra, disc-less, looked for something to throw too.

It seemed that Pollux had no time for games. He ran over to the fireplace, where the gold and silver ornaments were lying on the mantelpiece. Heather threw her disc again but only managed to clip the side of a chandelier. Pollux grabbed the gold ornament and was reaching for the silver one when Quorra picked up a metal apple from the bowl of artificial fruit lying on a table and lobbed it at Pollux. It hit his helmet and stunned him momentarily.

"Aim for his torso, you can derezz him that way," Sam told Heather, and threw it at the dazed Pollux with an easy flick of his wrist.

Pollux may have been stunned, but he had composed himself enough to duck as Sam's disc went spinning into the fireplace and bounced back out again. Pollux made no move to catch it; evidently he was not after Sam's disc, but strangely enough, he wanted the ornaments.

Quorra was strangely disturbed by this. She seemed to care a lot more than Sam did for the ornaments. She ran after the Rinzler lookalike and they launched into combat, Quorra only armed with her fists, Pollux with his fists and a disc. Sam's expression turned to one of dismay, and he screamed, "Quorra! No!"

Quorra wasn't listening. She was hit repeatedly by Pollux, but managed to land a few good punches of her own. They were slowly tiring. Heather let fly her disc again, and it grazed Pollux's wrist. His hand slowly derezzed and he dropped the gold ornament. He cried out in pain, and Quorra used this distraction to kick him hard in the chest, sending him flying. Sam moved in to finish him, but Pollux quickly got up and ran out the window.

Heather followed, while Sam tended to Quorra. Pollux had nowhere to go but down. However, he had come prepared for this, and launched himself into thin air. Heather's eyes followed his leap. Pollux brought out a stick in mid-leap and a light-jet began to form and solidify. By the time he should have hit the ground, Pollux was gone.


	3. ISO

3 /\ ISO

Heather considered jumping after Pollux, since she would probably land on her feet anyways, but she didn't know how far the drop actually would be and it would be impossible to catch up wiith him on foot even if she landed safely.

She returned inside where Sam and Quorra were examining the house, trying to find out if pollux had taken any other items without them knowing. Heather went over to join them.

"I'm sorry," Heather said. "He got away."

"It's okay," Sam replied. "There was nothing we could really do anyway. But who is he and why would he break in just to swag two mantelpiece decorations?"

"He was looking for the key," Quorra said so softly it was almost a whisper.

"The key? The key to what?"

"The key to my life."

"Whaaaaaaaaat?" Sam exclaimed in disbelief.

"Yes," Quorra said guiltily. "Those two 'ornaments' are the other way to derezz all isomorphic algorithms. Clu didn't know, so he had to send his troops to kill us manually. He didn't know that these two could end us all.

"Kevin Flynn had created us, but he had also left a sort of bomb in the each of us that would react and kill all of us ISOs if we defected or became corrupt. The bomb's detonator are these two. If a killcode is entered while revising its code, the ornaments aren't the only thing that's no longer going to exist."

"But if Pollux wants to kill all the ISOs, why didn't he just finish you off?"

"Because he believes there are others. And because he knew that he wouldn't be able to kill me easily with the two of you around."

Sam blinked. "There are others?"

"I think so, and judging today's events, so does Pollux. I've always hoped that somewhere out there, other ISOs were living in hiding, waiting for the right time to appear. Something must have happened in the Grid for Pollux to think so."

"Er..." Heather interrupted. "Sorry to stop the explanation, but has anybody noticed that the portal's open?"

San and Quorra turned. Heather's words were true, and the portal to the real world was indeed open. It was a bright blue tunnel of light stretching vertically into the black clouds that hung over the Grid.

"This day just gets weirder and weirder," Sam commented.

"I guess that's why Pollux was here," Quorra said. "Only an ISO could have opened it from the inside."

"Well, now that the portal's conveniently open, how about we get the ISO bomb out of here and close the portal so that Pollux can't have them? Then, if you want to look for the ISO, you could always come back, since they would be safe." suggested Heather.

"Good idea," Quorra said.

"We still don't know who Pollux is," Sam insisted. "He could come after us with an entire army, like Clu intended to."

"If we leave now we won't have to worry about that," Quorra retorted.

"Right," Sam conceded. "Where are the batons?"

* * *

Three Light-Jets took to the air somewhere in the Outlands. They flew towards the air checkpoints at the entrance to the Grid, unafraid. Now that Clu was gone, they would no longer have to hide. Flying over the city was quite the experience for Heather. The Light-Jet controls were easy to master and all that, but being able to see nearly everything, whether it was below you, above you or in front of you, made her giddy.

Quorra scanned the ground from her Light-Jet. She felt like she should have been looking for something. People were milling about, but they just looked like chess pieces on an ultimately bigger board from where she was.

Somewhere in the middle of the crush of people, Quorra spotted someone. There was a spark of recognition, and Quorra swooped down toward the street.

"What is she DOING?" Heather heard Sam exclaim through her headset.

Heather and Sam followed, and the Light-Jets were safely returned to baton mode. Quorra started half-running, half-jogging towards someone. Heather and Sam waited helplessly by the kerb.

The person that Quorra had recognized was a young boy, who was about Heather's height and was coming out of his teens. He was wearing a hood, so it was impossible to see his face from afar, yet Quorra felt a bond to him, like the bond between two siblings. She caught up to him and called, "Kaylen!"

The boy turned. Under the hood, the expression on his face was one of pure shock at the notion that someone other than him knew his name. However, it turned to one of joy when he saw Quorra.

"Not so loud," he said, but he was smiling as he said it. He hugged Quorra and she brought him over to where the other two were standing. Sam stared at them both.

"And this is?" Heather could tell Sam was pretty confused, and maybe a bit jealous. Quorra mouthed 'The ISO' and hustled all three of them into an alleyway where nobody would be listening.

"This is Kaylen. He's another ISO, so thast sorta makes him my brother." She turned to Kaylen then. "You can take off the hood now."

The boy pushed back the hood. Heather stifled a gasp. She thought he was amazingly good-looking, with jet black hair like Quorra's. He had the ISO mark on his neck instead of his arm, and he had a serious face, but he was grinning as he spoke to Quorra.

"Were you the one who opened the portal?" Sam asked. Kaylen nodded.

"I didn't know that it would open! I was just fiddling with my disc and I guess I must've accidentally activated it."

Sam's eyes widened slightly. To have accidentally activated a portal that could only be opened from the outside this boy must have been one hell of an ISO.

"Um, if you'll excuse me, I need to get somewhere." Kaylen started walking off, but Quorra pulled him back.

"Where?"

"To get my disc back. Now please." He tried to push Quorra away but Sam grabbed his arm and shoved him back against the wall.

"You lost your disc?" Sam asked, horrified.

"No, I didn't. It... got stolen."

"STOLEN?" Now Quorra had joined Sam's Horrified Expression Club.

Kaylen shrugged. "I'm just gonna get it back, okay? I don't see why YOU'RE so concerned, sis, I can see that you don't have your disc either."

Sam got defensive over this. "She had to give it up, okay? For... for my dad."

To avoid Kaylen making Sam sadder/more frustrated/angrier/want to kill him, Heather intervened. "Uhh, was the guy who stole your disc this really shady fellow with a red evil villain outfit and a helmet that makes him look like Rinzler?"

Kaylen looked at Heather. His shockingly electric blue eyes met hers, and she shivered inwardly.

"Well, how did you know?" he said in an incredulous tone.

"Oh, we just knew cause the same guy attacked us and plans to steal THESE-" Here Sam thrusted the ornaments under Kaylen's nose. "-So that he can put his evil plan to kill you all in motion. OKAY?" Sam's voice bordered on absolute hysteria, and clearly he thought that Kaylen was an irritating bugger who didn't really know squat, unlike Heather, who thought he was all kinds of dreamy and knew everything.

Kaylen had a poker face on. "Okay, so can I go get my disc back now?"

Sam turned to Quorra. "Can I hit him?"

"Don't be silly, Sam," chided Quorra. Then she turned to Kaylen. "We'll go with you."

"Sure, why not?"

"That's settled then. You can travel with Heather," Quorra said happily, as if she had solved all the problems in the world. Kaylen looked at Heather again, his face brightening. Heather's insides melted away like warm chocolate.

"At least I don't have to travel with The Grumpster," Kaylen said jokingly, elbowing Sam. Quorra had to gently restrain Sam from going after Kaylen as he trudged off with Heather. Sam fumed silently. What had he done to deserve meeting Kaylen?

* * *

**Hello! I'm Eli, and I wrote this story, with my brother Ian helping me out with Tron research and stuff(so I deserve more credit :D). I just wanted to say thanks for reading and Happy New Year!**

**Please rate/review and any plot ideas/complaints/compliments will be taken seriously. Thank you! ^_^**


	4. Arena

4 /\ Arena

"So, er, did Pollux leave any clues about where he was taking your disc?" asked Heather, after she'd elaborated on the attack on Sam's house in the Outlands.

_Keep your eyes on the road_, she thought, repeating it like a mantra. _Keep your eyes on the road, just resist the urge to stare at him, even though he's so... so-_

"Uh, yeah." Kaylen's drawl interrupted her thoughts. "He said he was taking it to the abandoned game arena.

Heather swore in her mind. Oh sweet Fyora, this smells like a trap!

"This smells like a trap!" Sam seemed to have snatched the words out of her brain. The game arena, once used for the infamous gladiatorial games known as 'disc wars', was now abandoned after Clu's reign had ended. Now, discs were only used in combat when absolutely necessary, and programs and Users alike were not derezzed in a prism for no reason.

"I guess we have no choice, if we wanna find Pollux and get your disc back," he continued with just a hint of loathing when he said 'your disc'. "The arena it is."

* * *

The light-cycle journey to the arena was a short one, and when it was finally time for Kaylen to unclasp his arms from around Heather's waist she was pretty disappointed.

"That was a great ride," he commented, making her turn bright red. Sam noticed this, and raised an eyebrow. To avoid suspicion, she casually waved back - or tried to casually wave back.

Quorra scanned the outside of the arena. Nothing seemed out of place, other than the fact that it was amazingly decrepit and the fact that Pollux was somewhere in there. She had no idea that digital buildings could decay.

"The visitors' entrances have been deactivated!" Sam was shouting at them from a nearby door. The sensor that would have opened it was dead. "We'll have to go in via the contestants' entrances." The thought of his first time here made him shudder. He still remembered the Recognizer, how it had brought him here to be dressed by Sirens and then sent on to 'Death by Deadly Flying Glowing Frisbee'.

Kaylen, Sam and Quorra searched the floor for platforms that looked like contestants' entrances while Heather stood there. She had no idea what they were looking for. Holes in the ground? The notion of looking for holes in the ground excited the Xweetok part of her.

_HOLES? I LIKE TO DIG HOLES!_ it screamed. _HOLES! HOLES! HOLES!_

Heather walked around, inspecting the floor. She accidentally stepped on an entrance without knowing it, and nearly fell down in fright when the platform started its slow descent into the armory.

The armory was deserted, of course. The Sirens' resting places were empty, and the floor did not glow. Only the illumination from above and her suit lit the place. Heather found it creepy. If she had been in Xweetok form her fur would have bristled.

All of a sudden, the walkway leading out to the arena burst into life, and the doors parted. This was not good. Someone knew that the four of them were here.

Heather ran out into the dazzling white light. The arena's lights had been turned on recently. It looked every bit like it had in its prime, except that a few railings were crooked and a wall or two didn't have that gleam from before. Heather wondered if that was a good thing, considering how many innocent or damaged programs had been derezzed here.

Quorra was emerging from the tunnel opposite her, and Sam and Kaylen were in a prism directly below her. "What's going on?" she asked Quorra. "How come the arena's functioning?" Unfortunately, Quorra was every bit bewildered as Heather. "I don't know" was the answer.

A spotlight turned on behind the prisms, and all four of them turned to see Pollux, their nemesis, sitting on a seat and juggling Kaylen's disc. Quorra's eyes narrowed. Kaylen looked flustered at the thought of someone juggling his disc, which was the equivalent of his brain. Please don't drop it, he pleaded in his mind.

"Well, the heroes return," came the distorted voice from behind that black, unforgiving helmet visor. "I have something you need, and you have something I want."

"YOU AIN'T GETTING THEM!" screamed Sam from directly beneath Heather's feet.

"How sad," Pollux boomed. "I'll just have to take them from you later then, when you've been derezzed. However, I have a deal for you all. Something that will entertain us all, and prolong your miserable little lives."

_What a cliched monologue_, thought Kaylen. Oblivious to this, Pollux kept talking.

"Let's play a game. Something you all have probably played before. Something called 'disc wars'. Heard of it? I'm sure you have. One of you will choose a representative to go up against me. This will not be a fight to the death, however. The winner will the one who manages to derezz any part of their opponent first, or 'draw first blood', as you would say on Earth. How about it, seeing as you're all here already?"

Both the ISOs were disc-less. That narrowed the choice down to either Sam or Heather. Sam pulled out his disc in response. "I'll go," he said.

"No, Sam!" shouted Quorra, banging against the prism wall. "You're out of practice!"

"I could go," squeaked Heather timidly. Pollux chuckled. He was clearly finding this entertaining, and it was pretty funny to hear someone tell the Son of Flynn that he was out of practice at disc wars. How hilarious, thought Pollux. These four are a riot.

Sam looked up. Heather realized that they could hear each other perfectly, even though they were separated by the prism. She whispered, "It's okay, even if I get derezzed you'll still be able to save the ornaments."

"C'mon, Pollux!" Heather shouted. "You're up against me now!"

Pollux got up, setting Kaylen's disc on the seat. It was a minor taunt, seeing as none of them could get to it while they were in the prisms. Even if they got out, they'd meet their end in Pollux's disc before they could even climb fifty steps to his perch.

"Now, the conditions. If I win, I keep this disc and you hand over the ISO Keys. If you win, you get to take the disc and keep the Keys. But don't worry. You won't win. And even if you win, what's to stop me from coming after you a second time?"

"A TOTAL AND UTTER DEREZZING!" screamed Sam. This just amused Pollux more. He evidently didn't think that was possible. Talk about being cocky.

"So, since we now have my competitor, let the games begin!" Pollux snapped his fingers, and the arena went dark. When the lights came back on a second afterwards, Sam, Quorra and Kaylen were in a single prism, while floating above them, were Heather and Pollux.

"How did he do that so fast?" Kaylen wondered aloud.

Pollux drew his disc. He didn't split it into two, like Rinzler had done, but it looked deadly enough to an inexperienced fighter like Heather. She gulped.

"This is going to be so much fun," chuckled Pollux, and he swung his arm around, with the disc, as if he was strumming a massive guitar using the disc as his pick.

"Guys, I think I just found out who Pollux is," muttered Quorra. Then she turned her gaze upwards and screamed. It was a cry of outrage, at his betrayal in the past and his further treachery now. It was a cry of disappointment, at the thought that after all they had been through, their friendship had been nothing but a fluke. It was a cry of anger, at his attempt to harm one of Quorra's best friends she'd ever had, which ended up harming her instead and had brought her offline. And yet it was also a cry of surprise, seeing as he was supposed to be dead - derezzed in the explosion of the club that he owned.

"CASTOR!"


	5. Identities

5 /\ Identities

Pollux/Castor stared at Quorra, his confident facade still up.

"Seriously, Quorra, it took you this long to guess?"

"I thought you were dead!"

"And Kevin Flynn thought Tron was dead. My story's similar to his. Everybody saw the explosion of my dear departed club, but nobody knew whether Gem and I had been derezzed. Just before the grenades exploded, Clu had come back for me, figuring I'd be of good use to him. Of course, I was reprogrammed, yadda yadda yadda, but I was given a different objective. I was Clu's small backup plan. My purpose is not to amass an army, nor is it to get into the real world. It's to steal the ISO Keys and derezz all the remaining ISOs out there; to finish what he had started."

Quorra shook her head. "We used to be friends. But first Sam, and now Heather?"

"Things change. Now, can I fight your friend here already? I'm getting tired of this useless banter." Pollux flicked his disc half-heartedly and it soared through the air, but Heather easily sidestepped it, leaving it to bounce off a few walls and return to Pollux's hand.

Sam dropped to the prism floor and began pounding at it. Kaylen watched silently. "What ARE you doing?" Quorra asked, irritated and sad from the day's events.

"I figured I could get out of this thing and get Kaylen's disc back by pounding through the floor, like I did the last time I was here. This time, since there are no other prisms to land on, I can just jump straight to the ground and run to the stands. All this while Pollux is too busy to notice, of course."

High above them, Heather was scared and wide-eyed, the Xweetok part of her wanting to make a dash while it wasn't too late. _FIND A HOLE! _it screamed. _HOLES ARE SAFE!_

She made a few throws, but her angle calculations were no good, and her disc just bounced of walls and zipped through thin air, close to Pollux but not close enough. Running and jumping to dodge the red disc of Doom posed no problem for her, but there was no point in fighting a disc war if you didn't attack.

Down below, Sam had taken out his disc as well and was trying to carve through the floor to no avail. Finding the edge of a hexagonal pane was harder than he thought it would have been.

Pollux had no idea what was happening beneath his feet, as he was concentrating fully on trying to derezz Heather. This gave him a sort of advantage, though. His attacks were getting dangerously closer and closer to Heather with every throw. She seemed to be very incompetent at this game. _Too late to turn back now, _she thought.

_THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TO FIND A HOLE! _shrieked her inner burrower.

(Clunk.)

The ears on either side of her head twitched because of two things- Pollux's disc whizzing by, and the noise coming from below. She looked down and saw, out of the corner of her eye, three small figures dropping out of a hole in the prism. Sam, Quorra and Kaylen had managed to get out!

Quorra ran over to a part of the wall that had crumbled. "You can climb this to get to the disc," she said. "I'll stay here and keep an eye on the battle."

Sam and Kaylen clambered over the rubble, looking like two luminescent snakes sliding over the concrete mess from Heather's viewpoint. She was tiring, and Pollux was beginning to throw his disc way more accurately. She just had to keep this up...

"Do you think the disc is boobytrapped?" Sam asked breathlessly as he continued to climb.

"Probably not," replied Kaylen, calm as always. "If there were boobytraps I would know. The disc can relate its surroundings to me through images in my head. There doesn't seem to be anything attached to it that could hinder us from taking it."

Sam's face changed. He wondered if Quorra had had the same telepathic connection with her disc before she lost it in their final confrontation with Clu, or if this kid was just so smart that he'd managed to modify his own disc as well. Either way, it didn't make him any less annoying.

Up in the prism, Heather ducked as Pollux's disc flew by; a red blur in their otherwise blue surroundings. She took a running start and slid on the floor of the arena, trying to gash her opponent's leg, but he saw it coming and evaded her move.

_This guy is just impossible to beat_, she thought. _However, he must have a blind spot of some sort. Finding it is going to prove difficult._

Pollux was merely toying with her. Heather knew that he could finish her off anytime he wanted now that she was weary and less able to move. Quorra watched the battle, sadness welling up in her for the loss of a friend and the possible loss of her pet, whom she had grown attached to in the short time they were together. If only she had her disc, then she could take out Pollux from behind and free Heather.

Or maybe she could do something else to help...

Quorra ran towards the main entrance of the arena, a plan forming in her mind.

* * *

Heather's breath came in ragged gasps. She bet that underneath that helmet, Pollux was smiling contentedly. That gave her a burst of new resolve, and she braced herself to make a running leap.

All of a sudden, the arena lights fizzled out. There was still light, due to the blue glow of the Grid, but not enough to be able to see properly.

Quorra punched the air silently in triumph. Her plan was working so far. She knew that Pollux's suit would stand out in the blue glow as it was red, and that would help Heather see him in the dark, if she couldn't already see him with her sharpened Xweetok vision. As for Heather's suit, the blue lights from outside helped disguise it, so that Pollux wouldn't really be able to see her.

Heather stuck to the walls of the prism where the blue light filtered in. The red lines from Pollux's suit were bobbing about. He was probably disorientated. If he didn't have night-vision in his helmet, Heather would be able to try and dispatch him, and this time she was the one with the advantage.

She risked throwing her disc at the red lines, but they bobbed to the side as it went by. His ability to predict her attacks was infuriatingly accurate. Heather continued creeping along the wall. Her eyes flew to the place where Sam and Kaylen were for a second and her concentration lapsed. Pollux's hand shot out and pinned her to the wall.

"Gotcha," he sneered.

Heather's scream echoed through the deserted arena.

* * *

**R & R please! Oh, and chapters might not come out that fast, since school's reopened and homework might keep writing at bay for some time. *sob***

**-Eli**


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